THE BLOWING OF THE ASHES 



THE HONOR OF 
BREATH FEATHER 



BY 

ANNA KALFUS 



ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAY LESSEY 



I. J. DE JARNETTE 
2319 HOWE STREET.^ BERKELEY 
CALIFORNIA 



E9S 



For base of poem legends see the works 
of Powell and Schoolcraft. For The Legend 
of Itasca, A Portfolio of Indian Sketches, 
Harper & Grambo, 1855. 



COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE AUTHOR 

MAR 2b i9!4 

©CI.A3ri058 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEAl HER 



Breath Feather had sorrow, for his sister's son 
was dead at the worst time for him. Because of 
the boy Breath Feather was between his enemies, 
waiting for any sign of action which the breath 
of fate should blow him. 

His sister had wrapped the boy in all his 
garments. She would not keep one, for he would 
need it in the land to which he was going. The 
father had seen her twine his riches around the 
boy, the riches of his wampum-strings, white 
beads, the Indian's silver, red beads, his gold, 
and he had said nothing as she ruined him for 
life. She had crowded the boy into the pap- 
poose-basket — he was rather too large for it in 
all his clothes. In one hand she had put a shell, 
white and slim like a tusk. She had whispered 
to the child: ^'Little one, under the world, by 
the house where the earth is red, the road forks. 
Take the fork of the road by the hand that holds 
the shell and thou shalt get home without thy 
mother." She had taken the best covering and 
wrapped it around him, around the peace-look 
on his face : she had corded the bundle with wild 
vines, and it was ready for the fire in the trench. 

5 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

To these parents everything which had been 
alive and changed was immortal, with the old 
needs of earth. They saw their departed hope 
comfortable and happy because of what he had 
taken away, and their sorrow was tempered by 
the joy of their ruin — but Breath Feather! 

The boy had been called Little Breath 
Feather. It was not custom that one should be 
called for another, for the reason that should 
either die the living would be left without a 
name, but the boy had borne Breath Feather's 
name and it must drop out of speech — people 
did not speak the name of the dead. 

He had died at an important time, when 
selected youths, clothed in bear skins, were to be 
sent out to commune with the gods in fasting and 
purity, with the end in view that these gods, 
great bears, would send some vision, warning, 
or sign, to advance them in life or further the 
interests of the band. To such neophytes come 
back from holy communion, new names were 
given and the privilege to kill a man without 
accounting. Breath Feather, well-spoken-of in 
youthful activities, had been picked as one of the 
youths to go before the gods, and he was going 
in order to get back and kill One Coyote and not 
pay for him. Always till now his wishes had 

6 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

come to him as easily as the feather he had 
leaped to take from the wind; but his sister's 
child had left him The Nameless One. 

That he should go before the gods without a 
name was the worst of omens. Fifteen centuries 
had clothed with peculiar meaning the misfor- 
tune which had overtaken him. It was the work 
of a malignant throng, not men, each of which 
was stronger than a man. When a child he had 
snatched a feather from the wind and won his 
name, and no one had known the name of the 
bird from which it had fallen. The throng of 
Fates, in taking the boy, had leaped to snatch his 
name as he the wind's feather, and no one knew 
the loss it meant. Because of the boy he waited 
in strange trouble between his enemies, the 
moping solitary One Coyote and Old Old White 
Ashes, among other stolid men in the house. He 
waited, hating One Coyote because he had 
tricked him out of iSoft Cloud, as Old Old White 
Ashes waited, hating both because they were 
young and had played a little with Soft Cloud, 
and because long joy of life might lie before one 
of them with the girl even then slipping in late 
to sit by the Great Great Grandmother and wail 
among the women. 

One Coyote thought much, as thinking went 

7 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

in his day. He heard the women's wailing 
faintly because of his thoughts. His memory, 
going back to look at doings of The Nameless 
One, and bounding from one to another of these, 
showed him that always when The Nameless 
One had done something, he, One Coyote, had 
said it could be done; he, the thinker, had made 
the honor of the doer. Even when they were 
boys snaring little fishes with the hair of girls. 
Soft Cloud's had brought his great luck. He 
told this to his mate and got no more lucky 
snares — the other had snares and luck — till he 
had tracked Soft Cloud back for a while. But 
what had a youth who was just going to seek 
the gods and begin to be a man? Old Old White 
Ashes had a great oval-dome of a house thatched 
with dry tules and stocked with food and com- 
fort. He would be the one who would get 
Soft Cloud to keep. At another thought, which 
was also a hope to coil around his heart-core like 
a quick poison-snake, he felt good cheer, Old 
Old White Ashes might never have a son to keep 
him in the recollection of the gods, in which 
case it would be worse for him than if he had 
never been born, and one enemy would be struck. 

Again, The Nameless One was to have what 
both had most wished for and talked of, permis- 
sion to go with youths sent this year to seek the 

8 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



bears. He, himself, could go. Any lad of his 
age could go of custom if he willed to do so; 
but self-choosing was not like being picked as 
worthy by the elders of the band — blind elders. 
The thinker could see something inside him as he 
could see his body in the waters of the creek, 
but he had no words to put in a picture for 
others to see that which was to make a better 
man than one they had chosen. His heart be- 
came heavy again, so heavy that he would have 
thought it a lump or a stone except that these 
could have no sore and no hate. He saw plainly 
that he had made the honor of the man without 
a name and had defrauded himself. 

Now he hated everyone, his enemies, the 
elders, even Soft Cloud, who had been led from 
him by a boy's doings and would be beguiled by 
an old man's good house and comfort. Most of 

all he hated The Nameless One, who he had 

thought it out — meant to get back and kill him. 
He came not to hear the wailing of the women 
for thinking of what a good hater should do to 
control what he hated and to be controlled by 
neither things nor men. He had become as 
never before, a thinker, for now it was not love, 
but hate, which he must contrive to satisfy and 
life which he must protect. 



9 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



Next day, keeping unseen, he padded out 
after the youths going into the presence of the 
gods. He tracked The Nameless One to his 
sanctuary, a shag of ferns and hazel-bush in a 
hollow of the mountain known as The White 
Woman, in a land where no white woman had 
ever stepped. On a shoulder of the hollow were 
berries ; at its mouth was thin still water. 

One Coyote crept under the shag to watch. 

If The Nameless One should so much as pluck 
one berry or dip his fingers in the thin water to 
moisten his lips, he would inform the priest tho 
he should die for spying on holy youth. The 
traitor to his vows could have but one name and 
be but one thing — ^^Outcast" was the name, out- 
cast was the thing. If the loss of the name could 
be made to mean this, another enemy would be 
struck. 

At noon next day The Nameless One was 
kneeling up in his bear-coat in such daylight as 
went to the hollow, and reaching up his arms as 
he had done thru the night. One Coyote's heart- 
sore was worse. As things were, he believed that 
The Nameless One would keep his fast. He was 
very hungry himself. He wished that a woman 
would wander to the hollow, for never had any 

10 



THE HOlSrOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



youth made scandal of the great fast by looking 
on a woman ; but no woman would be wandering 
from home. At that he had a thought which 
would deprive Old Old White Ashes of his son, 
which would disgrace Soft Cloud, which would 
banish The Nameless One, and which would 
place his band as low in the sight of old friends 
and old enemies as he saw himself by neglect. 
As fast as he might, he went down to the Great 
Great Grandmother with an invention. 

^^Great Great Grandmother, I was not sent to 
the gods — I was nobody — I could only think. I 
went to my own place, and the gods have made 
it as holy as any. A she-bear came there to One 
Coyote and made him her messenger to honor 
The Nameless One. She will give him the green 
stone-bear on the sacred bundle for a sign that 
he will honor the people. A pure woman is to 
take the green stone to the she-bear. Who is so 
pure as Soft Cloud?" 

"Old Old White Ashes has this morning taken 
Soft Cloud." 

"Old Old White Ashes must give up awhile. 
Go. Tell him. Get Soft Cloud in the brown 
she-bear's hide that is against the house-wall, for 
she must be covered. She must go with you to 
the medicine-man for the green stone. She must 

11 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



go alone with it to the she-bear that is in the 
middle hollow of the White Woman. The first 
day she must not speak. Next day she may speak 
to whatever is there. She must stay till the she- 
bear sends her home. Tell Old Old White Ashes 
that the she-bear will see to it that Soft Cloud 
has a fine son if she can be trusted to do as she 
is told and to tell no thing that is done. She must 
do this — tell no thing that is done." 

Great Great Grandmother was highly re- 
spected. She had strong medicine, much power, 
tho she had lost the boy. She went to Soft 
Cloud. 

''Get in the brown she-bear's hide that is 
against my house-wall. I will make it right with 
Old Old White Ashes. Go to the priest for what 
he will give you. Take it to The White Woman. 
Go above the middle hollow by the outside. Slip 
down to the she-bear you will find waiting, and 
give her the green stone made in her shape. Do 
not speak today. Tomorrow you may begin to 
speak. The she-bear will send you home when 
it is time. If you have not too much mouth she 
will see to it that you have a fine son." 

Great Great Grandmother hastened to the 
priest. 

12 



THE HONOE OF BREATH FEATHER 



"It has never been so before. A she-bear of 
the gods has spoken to your sister's son. She says 
send her green stone shape from the sacred 
bundle. Your sister's son is to be advanced to 
honor." 

"Who says this to me?" 

"One Coyote. He sought his own place. He 
sought it in his own way. The gods have made 
his way and his place as holy as any. The she- 
bear went to One Coyote and sent him to me. 
My speech is as his speech." 

"Who is to take the holy thing?" 

"That which is at the door." 

Already the messenger was at the door in the 
brown bear-hide that had hung against the house- 
wall. 

With the holy sign of the green stone Soft 
Cloud climbed above the middle hollow of the 
mountain and trembled down to a shape in a 
bear-coat. She supposed it was the she-bear, for 
she was timid and dared to look but once, and 
she drew her bear-robe closer. 

The eyes of The Nameless One were closed, 
his arms stretched before. He brought his palms 
to the earth as if taking. He lifted them as if 
offering to the gods all that he had received. 
Soft Cloud held the green stone where one of 

13 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



the descending palms lay upon it. The Name- 
less One opened his eyes and saw his honor, the 
sign of the holy ones in his hand, the messenger 
of the gods before him, a bear — no — a woman 
folded in tall sweet ferns and low stalks of wind- 
flowers. 

Soft Cloud told her story. She had expected 
to find a she-bear who had sent One Coyote for 
her green stone shape. Had the gods sent her 
to their worshipper? Either this or she was 
ruined for ruining a man. 

The man saw it as ruin under the old order or 
a boon under a new — and had not the gods, even 
the Wind, ever given him boons easily? Pre- 
sumptive of the good will of the gods, pre- 
sumptive of their happiness, he dared their mes- 
senger, for end of the old or beginning of the 
new, to live out his time of trial as bears live in 
their hollows. 

The last day Soft Cloud rose out of her bear- 
hide with berries in her hair and berry-stains on 
her lips, and saw a figure beyond the thin water 
behind the back of her mate. She thrust out one 
finger, dark as earth; she said low, "One 
Coyote.'' 

Her punishment was at hand, the man's sus- 

14 



THE HONOB OF BREATH FEATHER 



picion. The Nameless One joined her with One 
Coyote and the malignant things which had 
taken his name in taking the boy called after 
him, and without shame he felt for his strength, 
broken by half-fasting, and gathering it, he smote 
the woman in the mouth, in the breast, and below 
the girdle; and he turned, but One Coyote was 
not there. 

He kneeled to the earth, and sank to drink of 
the scant fresh water. While he was drinking. 
One Coyote was running very swiftly from 
death, very swiftly and very thoughtfully run- 
ning. When he rose, the water was thinner. He 
searched till he found a flinging stick: he went 
hunting with it. 

He knew the ways to which a man would keep 
if he were not hunted, for journeying men must 
walk in the old paths, and in them were appoint- 
ed resting-places and places where men's voices 
must be low and offerings must be made to the 
devil of the trail. 

He reached the end of the trail at the end of 
the good land. A tree there was the last station 
where the devil could be honored, but he had 
brought no offering. 

A red spider had taken a trail out of its own 
body, a ghost-thin trail, and floated it down, and 

15 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

come to the end of it to look at him. Its eyes 
were made of lights. It spread its feet, and, 
steadied against something unseen, stood per- 
fectly still as it observed him. Later it began to 
go above, gathering up and taking with it the 
trail that it might not be followed. It would tell 
the devil that a man was passing with no offering. 

Before it quite vanished The Nameless One 
laid the flinging-stick at the roots of the devil- 
tree and dropped ofif where there were no paths. 
A cross-country wind puffed at his back tho it 
was an hour when a sea-wind should have been 
against him. For his sacrifice of the weapon 
already the informed devil was helping him on: 
but had he been slain he would have gone with 
his hate under the world to the house by the road 
where the earth is red to wait for One Coyote 
and keep him from the fork of the road which 
led home. 

He moved so as to keep his man in that part 
of the tule-marsh which went out and lay down 
as low as the sea. He was sure that he would 
find him, tho hid like a shadow and as hard to 
find, between the devil-tree and the lazy creek 
which lay against a long spit of rock poked out 
from the world's edge. 

The hunt was slow, hunger overtook him, and, 

16 




A MAN TALL FROM VICTORY 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

waiting in the tules for a sign of a man, he 
prayed to The Highest Help, the Great Mind 
which is the Universe, and is above all other 
gods, to let him think that he had eaten. Wait- 
ing for eye or nose or startled wing, he saw down 
from the tules blown on the breath of evening 
into huddles in the sea; he watched a huddle of 
the drift onward bound thru the water toward 
him, and little waves trying to roll over it, and 
the sea-drift getting to the top. The drift he 
took for One Coyote's plot, and the little waves 
for things One Coyote was doing for it. When 
the drift moved in the very crest and top-froth 
of the little waves he looked for a big wave to 
come over them like the big thing he would do. 
The big wave came and went and there was the 
huddle of drift. One Coyote's plot, bound to- 
ward him. Bigger waves and great water-shapes 
were coming — let them come — he had the feel- 
ing of a laugh inside where he was ruined. 

He saw many water-shapes, green and gleam- 
ing, rise from the sea. He heard the boom out 
of their deep mouths when they rushed beside 
the long spit, and, shouldering each other, went 
up the creek, very tall and very strong tho their 
locks were as white as the oldest man's. There 
was nothing to hold them back, and the world 

17 



THE HONOE OF BEEATH FEATHEE 

there was flat as a floor, but he had no fear for 
he knew how far they had been used to go. 

One Coyote had his fancies where he lay by 
the edge of the world. He had seen the sea turn 
up a canoe and toss men as huddles of drift, but 
he had no fear of the sea so long as it sent up 
only little waves each one of which seemed tied 
to the bottom and to move up and down and back 
and forth thru a space measured by the motion 
of a tied canoe. Such watery heaps fell into lines 
which seemed to be long green snakes gone from 
the grass and playing in the sea. At the land's 
edge the snakes leaped a little, opened foaming 
lips, and, striking at rocks on the long spit, 
harmed nothing. But when black shining fins 
and mightv" shapes of green gleaming water were 
thrust from the sea, such as in all his life he had 
not lain near, he had fear as he waited. 

He, too, had hunger, and the torment of 
wicked souls which, in the bodies of pestiferous 
insects, harbored in the tules. He, too, prayed 
to the Highest High to take his hunger and let 
him be satisfied. He prayed to the god to hold 
back the shapes, and he implored the shapes, in 
the same agony and silence in which he prayed, 
to pass him by. He besought the souls to cling 

18 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



to him no more. Even in cold marsh-water his 
desire lingered on life, not comfortable life, mere 
life, for there is nothing which does not dislike 
to die. 

Unheeding prayer which was soundless the 
wicked souls bit out his blood, and One Coyote 
stirred to brush them off. 

The Nameless One was glad of the stirring, 
"as glad as grass of the rain." He started for- 
ward, not caring that old tules were crying 
harshly that he was there. One Coyote broke 
out of the tules, dripping salt marsh-mud. 
Shapes from the inexhaustible sea were leaping 
to meet him. To The Nameless One they ap- 
peared unfriendly as the tules, but caring nothing 
that the tules and the sea were helping his man 
he cried to the three together the name he had 
lost, a name of the dead, a wild and terrible cry. 
He ran out and gripped One Coyote and went 
mad at the joy of finding the good revenge he 
sought in his loss. One Coyote, more afraid of 
the shapes than of the brute gone mad at his 
throat, struggled no more than the shadow of a 
beaten man, and the shapes, caring nothing for 
triumph or defeat, and nothing for prayers in the 
line of their force, thrust both men from the 
edge of the world, and, falling apart, followed 

19 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 

them. Other shapes came from the sea, giants 
and loud-mouthed. Flapping long arms they 
passed swiftly along the edge of the world. 

As day after day crept backward, and, even 
as One Coyote and The Nameless One, came not 
again. Soft Cloud had awe and sorrow. The 
band saw that she was changed, and when she 
brought a fine son from the gods to preserve the 
memory of Old Old White Ashes they gave her 
respect and honor equalling that shown the 
Great Great Grandmother. 

They never knew of the heart-sore of One 
Coyote nor of the ruin of The Nameless One, 
never suspected that devils went out of the 
swamp and the sea to take them away when their 
desire of life was the desire of young men. They 
believed that the youths had been called to use 
among the gods that portion of the infinite and 
divine life which had been sent thru them for a 
few years to a band of men. They praised One 
Coyote as the messenger of the gods to Soft 
Cloud, to Old Old White Ashes, and to The 
Nameless One. They praised The Nameless 
One by a name greater than he had hoped for, a 
name which may be rendered no more nearly 
than ^'Honor-Man, Our Man." 

20 



THE HONOR OF BREATH FEATHER 



Again the thinker had made the honor of the 
doer — honor, the shifty thing, made by purpose 
or by its reversal. 

The spying of One Coyote turned to wider 
issues. Because of the signal favor of the gods 
the band moved from their low lands to higher 
country, boldly called themselves Bears, and on 
ceremonial occasions painted their faces to be as 
faces of bears. Approaching the dignity of a 
tribe they spake no more the language of others, 
but men and chiefs coming to talk of affairs used 
the speech of the two believed to be men whom 
gods had invited to come and continued to en- 
tertain. The thinking of One Coyote made the 
Golden Age. 



21 



THE GREAT BEAR 



Seven hunters followed Mukwa, 
Great Bear, moving on the shadows 
Of the long boughs, in the blue shade 
Of the forest, thru the hollows 
Of the bushes ; followed, creeping 
As the bush-vines creep thru bushes. 
Seven hunters from their longbows 
Ventured arrows after Mukwa — 
Never one or three would dare it. 

Friends the bear had, one a giant 
Going day by day aforest; 
Others, stronger, were the Woodwinds, 
Tall and long-armed, taking odors 
Over to him, taking footfalls. 

And the giant tracked the hunters — 
Overtook them, beat and broke them — 
Four he left to slip the arrow 
Forward hungrier for Mukwa. 

And the tall and long-armed Woodwinds 
Lifted Mukwa, rose, and set him 
In the open footpath running 
From the spirit's sky-blue wigwam 
Over treeless plains of heaven. 

22 



THE GREAT BEAR 



And the Great Winds, springing, shouting. 
Thunder clouds upon their faces. 
Moved the forest, shook its thickets; 
Found the hiding men, the hunters ; 
From the hollows in the thickets 
Flung them upward thru the full leaves ; 
Flung them upward thru the tree tops. 
Thru the thunder; flung them whirling 
'Round and 'round and upward, upward. 
To the foot-road straight and level 
Thru the clear-fields and the bear-grass 
Of the treeless plains of heaven ; 
Scattered them behind the Great Bear. 

Now he sees the hunters follow 
On the treeless plains of heaven. 
On the flatness and the sameness 
Of the grass-fields of the heaven. 

First is one who holds the longbow 
And the lean and eager arrow. 
After comes the kettle-bearer. 
Next the man with flints for firing. 
Last the one who gathers faggots. 

Never shall the arrow reach him, 

Never shall the fire be kindled 

'Neath the kettle of the famished: 

And he braves them — Mukwa, Star Bear. 

23 



THE LEGEND OF THE NORTH STAR 



In the land of the Algonquin 
Brave and strong-eyed was Ke-ne-u. 
Never sick or pained or fearful 
Was Ke-ne-u, War-bold Eagle. 

When he chose, he chose Memaingwah, 
Butterfly, the maid Memaingwah. 
He had played with her in childhood. 
She had flitted off before him 
But he reached her, overtook her — 
Swift and strong are wings of eagles. 
Wings of butterflies are weaker. 

Snatched by foemen from the warpath 
He had run the strong man's gauntlet 
And they neither killed nor struck him. 
Leaping from them he had shamed them. 

In the foemen's forest running. 
Hiding, creeping, hunted, hated, 
Famine-hungry, famine-thirsty. 
He had thought of this Memaingwah. 
At her doorway asked Ke-ne-u 
For the butterfly, Memaingwah. 

24 



THE LEGEND OF THE NORTH STAR 

He was told that she had left him, 
Flown from earth the moon before that, 
Flitted now along some lonely 
Spirit-trail across the heaven 
To some shining bridge the souls cross 
And he answered, ^'I will find her. 
Swift and strong are wings of eagles. 
Wings of butterflies are weaker," 
And he leaped into the forest. 

Never went he to his people 
As the warrior Ke-ne-u. 
Once he twinkled back with Firebirds, 
With the twinkling Wawwawtaissa ; 
Went with bands of turning, whirling 
Wawwawtaissa, Little Firebirds; 
Sparklike perched upon the arrow 
Of the father of Memaingwah ; 
Bright as Firebird sat there singing 
With a Firebird's hum and murmur, 
With the murmurous hum of fire; — 
^^I shall go toward the north sky 
And the shining bridge of spirits. 
Watch and you will see me waiting 
At the bridge-end for Memaingwah." 

And the people, watching Mukwa, 

25 



THE LEGEND OF THE NORTH STAR 

Saw a new star come to heaven; 
And they offered smoke of peace-pipes 
To the star which never vanished, 
For they knew it was Ke-ne-u, 
Watching for the lost Memaingwah 
On the shining bridge of spirits, 
Knew the star was their Ke-ne-u, 
Keeper of his obligation. 



26 



THE SPIRIT CANOE 



y the falls of Minnehaha 
hru the pleasant days of summer 
Stood the wigwam of Kookloogoo. 

In the wigwam worked Ampata, 
In the wigwam or its shadow. 
When she went too far to view it 
'Twas to gather for Kookloogoo 
Warpaint, yellow earth and red earth. 
And Ampata, working lonely 
the woman's way, grew homely. 

,ut Kooklogoo, free as winds are, 
'^ent far outward on the prairies, 
7ent to all the fishing waters, 
lunted deer at all the salt-licks, 
te the small and pleasant pine-nuts, 
Lte the melon and the green corn, 
;Lte the buffalo and bearmeat, 
^e the marrow of the great bones ; 
*ew as brave and strong as two men, 
erce and fearful on the warpath 
on two feathers for his scalp-lock; 
j^nd Two Feathers, strong as two men, 

I 27 



THE SPIRIT CANOE 



Took for wife a chieftain's daughter, 
And forgot the wife Ampata 
In the wigwam in the forest 
By the falls of Minnehaha. 

First, Ampata, brown and homely, 
Counted day-suns, counted night-suns ; 
Thru the Hot-moon, Corn-moon, Deer- 
Moon-of-sturgeon, Moon-of-travel, 
Counted, waited for Kookloogoo. 

When she knew, she took her children 
To the white canoe of birchbark. 
Pushed it out upon the river 
Running, leaping in the moonlight 
Falling down at Minnehaha. 

You can see them in the moonlight. 
Yonder, nearer, in the moonlight 
Gliding down at Minnehaha. 

In the white canoe of birchbark 
They are shadows, white as spirits. 
White as waters and the moonlight 
Falling down at Minnehaha. 



28 



IN THE HOME WOOD 



My mother saw the self-same flow'rs 

Which flame the dim beech-wood 
When she stole here in vanished hours 
Of her childhood, 

Saw antlered deer come drinking then 

Out of this same brown brook, 
And on a band of Indian men 
She chanced to look. 

From eaves of beeches gaily whirled 

Great flocks of paroquets 
In colors of the fern uncurled 
And violets. 

She gathered plumes (from flocks decreased 

To one that matelTess grieves) 
As many as the tints released 
By dying leaves. 

How many thousand flower-ghosts 

With hearts of honey-musk 
Move in that beam of shining hosts 
Aslant in dusk? 



29 



IN THE HOME WOOD 



Ghosts — herds of white deer, drinking, stand 

Untired, tall, and slim, 
Start, fade beyond the long low land 
In distance dim. 

From dark below the beeches' eaves 

And over wine-red mold 
That was the bodies of the leaves, 
Straight men of old 

Go forth among the violets 

A file of clouted folk 
Who see me not; long calumets 
They, sitting, smoke. 

They are not men with ruddy blood. 

They know not time or tide. 
And thru them runs a moon-white flood 
And naught beside. 

So many things have lived and died! 

It seems a destined part 
To have and lose — 'tis well to hide 
Thy ghosts, dear heart. 



30 



PRIMROSES AND THE STAR 



I'd vainly watched to see stars run 

From day in dust of lights 

To far-off places nights 
Have empty, left behind set suns. 

I'd watched hour after length'ning hour 
To see a bud unrolled, 
Quick-forming out of fold; 

When I was gone 'twould be a flow'r. 

Too slowly, slowly, came the bloom 

For wistful childish eyes. 

The stars ran to the skies' 
Blue-void too quickly thru the gloom. 

I found a thicket that in night 

Was hid away and seemed 

A quietness that dreamed 
And wished no one nor garish light: 

A garden thicket, waiting stalks 
With blurs of branches tipped 
With buds between the lipped 

Long trumpet-flowers from wall to walks. 

31 



PRIMROSES AND THE STAR 

Above, the first of yellow stars 
Was in its place in heav'n 
In blue that had been giv'n 

To it between the moon and Mars. 

The one star broke; and thin and fine 

It fell as if 'twould fade 

In the low thicket's shade 
As dark as purple columbine. 

But suddenly with flutterings 

On ev'ry branch-ed blur 

As golden moths, astir 
From startling, shake apart their wings, 

Outwidening, the starry glows 

Shook, and the stalk-tips shone 
With lifted-up full-grown 

Fair bodies of the great primrose. 

Nor mourned the moon nor old red Mars 

Their re-embodied lost. 

What need? The host they crossed 
Was as the sudden pomp of stars. 



32 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST 
SUMMER 



Over the length of Green River in the Land 
of Mammoth Cave was an arch of the brown 
bodies of trees and of the green and amber 
shining which leaves are when lifted in light. 
Under it, over a clear shallow of the river, 
Little Corn Tassel hung in a queer contrivance 
which Swan-a-noa, his mother, had made for 
him. 

This contrivance held him closer than the cup 
holds the acorn, or the bur, the chestnut, for 
it never once dropped him. It was woven of 
Willow-twigs, and was laced down the tapering 
front, from above the boy's waistline to below 
his toe-bottoms, with a brown deer's sinew. It 
was looped by a deerhide thong upon a tough 
bough of a willow which grew half its roots in 
the shallow. It was hung with its back to the 
south bank of the river that the boy might not 
want Swananoa from seeing her and win her 
from work, duty-work such as curing skins which 
Tarrho, her brave, brought in from the chase, 
and dear-work of which you shall know. 

33 



LITTLE COEN TASSEL'S FIEST SUMMER 

Swananoa might not go to the boy for hours, 
but leaping fishes went, gudgeons and shiners, 
and quiet birds, waders and divers; paroquets, 
too, big-beaked and unquiet, flashing, flaunting 
fellows, jabbering and jibing in hoarse voices, 
but their body plumage was greener than jade- 
stones, greener than baby-leaves born to the 
young mother, Spring, and their heads were 
yellower than yellow lilies Green River wore on 
her breast. 

Winds went into the fair stillness as often as 
birds. They made songs, and one was to the 
bough : 

Bow, Willow-bough, 
Dip a boy low; 

Aloft-alow 
Wave, Willow-bough. 

Swing a boy slow 

Aloft-alow, 
Up, Willow-bough, 
Swing, sway, high-O! 

Once on a time a foraging squirrel, with a tail 
like a gray mist-brush, paid a visit to the willow 
and beheld Corn Tassel. He poked his prying 
nose at Corn Tassel's left eye. Corn Tassel 
covered it with the lid which belonged to it. He 

34 



LITTI.E CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 

poked his prying nose at Corn Tassel's right eye. 
Corn Tassel covered that with its own lid, and 
opened his left eye. 

"You're not fit to eat, and youVe nothing at 
all, quite nothing," said squirrel, and, whisking 
his tail across both the little Indian's eyes, he 
leaped into a rabble of spark-red stars to vanish. 

The boy blinked but he did not cry — he was 
a young brave. 

He may not have seen the early eye looking 
at him from the far-blue. He may not have 
seen splendid bronze things which crept out of 
stalks and leafiness across the river, wild turkeys 
with scarlet about their heads, or panthers lap- 
ping water with scarlet tongues. Certainly he 
saw sparkles on the water, and flakes of birch- 
bark curled up like play-canoes, floating past 
with leaves and blossoms, and hulls of beans and 
cobs of corn which Swananoa threw to the river. 
He smelled succotash boiling in the red-clay 
kettle — the kettle had a scalloped border and a 
ring of rope-print not far under the border. He 
smelled steam of meat stewing with its garnish of 
beans or squashes. He smelled fragrance of 
cakes roasting on gray flat stones. He heard, 
hour after hour, sounds of the amulet-maker and 
sounds of the maker of weapons, who chose to 



35 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



work together between the banks of the little run 
above him when the water was low. He heard 
the bark of Gogo, their lean yellow dog, who 
sometimes barked in the face of the Thunder 
God himself. He heard Tarrho come home in 
the evening, the slipping of slain deer from 
Tarrho's shoulders, and the thud of Tarrho fall- 
ing down to rest. Best of all, he heard Swan- 
anoa's footsteps, tho never so soon or so often as 
he wanted. He found but wordless cries to say 
this as she came close behind him to reach up 
brown arms and draw him down, or to hold up a 
drink in a hollow red-clay owl with big, hooped, 
painted eyes, and a roundish hole in the top of 
its head. He always drank all that the owl 
brought. When she unlaced the sinew-cords 
and rolled him from his wrap in the stiff wicker 
case where he had lain as straight as an arrow in 
its sheath, she balanced him upon her palm, and 
the boy, three months old, stood as straight as a 
corn-stalk above brown mold, and strong enough 
to live, the old braves said. 

As Corn Tassel hung upon willow-bough in 
the summer-world, day by day the Sun sought 
and beat him ; mist swathed him and shut out the 
night's majesty, or rain slipt thru the leaves and 
pattered upon him and rolled from him and 

36 



LITTI.E CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



plasht in the shallow; and he hung flickering 
when the God of Lightnings, prowling by Green 
River, cut the dark with his gleaming hatchet. 

One night there was peace by the shallow. 
The moon was white as snow, and its sparkles 
on ripples and on floating bark-bits were like 
frost-work. All the birds were asleep in all 
their nests on the boughs, and Willow-bough was 
asleep. Its leaves hung down straight like the 
boy's wicker case. Only the boy's eyes moved 
and the slow ripples of the shallow. Then he 
saw, on the bough to which Squirrel had come, 
a puflf of feathers, the wise bird whose eyes are 
set in her face and not in the sides of her head. 
Her eyes were round, and gave light like amber 
moons, one on each side of her queer, high nose. 
They shone upon the boy's face, round and tawny 
like her's. He did not blink. 

"Ah who, Ah who, Ah who are you?" she 
moaned with swelling throat. Wind swayed the 
bough and the boy then, and Owl, wishing to 
know something more, turned her wise head to 
follow the boy with her moony eyes. ''Ah who, 
Ah who, Ah who-oo-oo are you?" she wailed. 

Corn Tassel spoke. "Ah goo!" said Corn 
Tassel. 

The wise bird did not understand. She started 

37 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



back — she started to float. She floated as softly 
as one feather till she had no bigness whatever in 
the white glory, and tho she was not to be found 
she was somewhere. 

"Ah goo!" gurgled Corn Tassel till he fell 
asleep. 

Swananoa stooped for a pinch of the wood- 
ashes under the red kettle, and, from the hollow 
of her hand, with soft breathing, dusted them 
over Corn Tassel to keep off elves of Babyland, 
who know every baby there and go out to punish 
them when they stray to Indian mothers; and she 
prayed to the gods of her band, and to the gods of 
whom Tarrho had told her, to the good ones to 
remember her beginning of a man, to the evil 
ones to forget him. 

Below him that night and many such nights 
was the river, dark and light, and yellow lilies, 
and his shadow on her breast. 

Back of the place where Swananoa worked 
was Tarrho's lodge, set in a ravine which shal- 
lowed to the river from a cliff. From the cliff- 
top linn and maple looked at the sky, white- 
flaked sycamores leaned toward the river, and 

38 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FEEST SUMMER 

berryvines crawled down the clififside and cov- 
ered the great round mouth of a Mystery. 

The visible breath of the Mystery was there, 
for the thing breathed with unhuman frequency, 
twice a year; and its breath lay on the air in 
banded mists, and fell sometimes in fine noiseless 
rain which glided back into darkness. 

A hollow from the great mouth was a passway 
under roots of trees, a passway black and bat- 
hung, a long darkness coiled like a snake, or 
winding down, down ; tangling with other coils 
winding down, down. It was dark as a wood 
where never a moon shines nor a star; where 
living things were eyeless because of marvelous 
blackness. Its noiseless waters slunk along walls, 
gathered in pools no bigger than saucers, was 
held in gulfs which would hide away tribes for- 
ever — pools and gulfs which held no sparkle; 
and thru them glided ghost-white fishes. It was 
so still that Tarrho had heard the boom of blood 
in his brain, yet he had found Talking Water 
which knew a secret of music no Indian knew. 
It had gardens where blossoms were enchanted 
to white stones; places so black that an hour of 
solitude would have meant madness ; a blackness 
which had sent Tarrho up from the garden of 
stones, up from the tangle, up, up, and out of the 



39 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



mouth of the Mystery which mercifully released 
him to the day. The Mystery was Mammoth 
Cave. 

Only Tarrho was brave enough to go far into 
its darkness, and he went thinking of Little Corn 
Tassel, and counselling with himself. 

There was dear-work for Swananoa. It was to 
soften skins. It was to drill rainbow scales of 
fishes with a pointed bone, to sew them upon the 
skirt and and about the neck of a scant skin shirt. 
It was to make a head-band of coarse, dingy, 
shells from Green River after she had rubbed 
them down on rough stones to the salmon and 
pink and pearl-white layers. It was to string a 
necklace of claws of baby-bears, and feathers 
from jibing quarreling paroquets and bluejays, 
and the skin of a short snake, and twisted shells, 
pink and wrinkled like morning-glories when 
morning is going from the day and the blossoms 
are tucking up their glory forever. 

To be sure, no garmentry was too good for 
Corn Tassel, tho he had more pleasure in a dry 
gourd or seed-bean-pod which rattled, than in 
all his finery; but it made him as gay as the spike 
of a wildflower, and it rejoiced the heart of 
Swananoa. 



40 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



In the talk of squaws working on wampum as 
they visited Swananoa, Corn Tassel heard the 
worth of a man-pappoose. 

''Swananoa has given five children to the gods 
of the dead. Tarrho counts one, the man-pap- 
poose." 

'^Tass has put away two with the gods. No 
man-pappoose. Tass is worthless to her band. 
She is worthless to her man." 

Old Margra's face was black and rutted like 
a stump which fire has charred. 

^^Margra has brought the man-child many 
times. The gods have taken her woman-child, 
and this is well. The woman bears and fetches, 
and is beaten by the way. The man throws meat 
to dogs, and the woman waits. Shawn did not 
count our woman-child. Well that she died. 
Her soul was nothing. Nothing to Shawn was 
it that her soul should hunger. Margra, mother, 
put the cloth in her little hands." 

Swananoa took up the cry. ^Tive times I put 
the cloth in their little hands, Tarrho counts 
one." 

''In my little child's hand I put the cloth," 
crooned Tass. 

All the mothers crooned or moaned behind the 
boy's back, one making a thought and the others 

41 



LITTLE COEN TASSEL'S FIEST SUMMER 



taking it for her own, till they chanted one song 

as if one mother: 

I put the cloth in her little hand, 
I put the cloth in her little hand, 
I did. 

It was wet with milk, 
It is wet with milk — 
The cloth in her little hand. 
If she should cry it is there. 

Little Corn Tassel could not speak his 
thoughts, but he must have had many, for he 
heard other strange things told behind his back, 
tales which braves, beast-hunters and man-slay- 
ers, told when they idled and gamed, between 
hunting and fishing, by Tarrho's lodge. He 
heard what every man has heard, 

A Tale of the Making of Men. 

In the beginning men were made in caves low 
in the earth, low in the dark. They were not 
happy. The Sun sent his son and daughter low 
under the earth to comfort men. The children 
of the Sun cut a way to a place which was high, 
and to another place which was higher. They 
led men to the rainbow and left them. The rain- 

42 



LITTLE COEN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 

bow gave men fire, and the fire comforted them. 

In the talk of fishers coming to Green River 
for fish which had never known tainted water, 
Corn Tassel heard: 

The Legend of Itasca. 

Toward the country which is white because it 
is frozen, but not quite there, Itasca lived in the 
lodge of her father, the Good Spirit. Her name 
was Itasca, that is Evening Light. She was 
named from her beauty, the beauty of light when 
it shines at the last of day on leaves and grass if 
it is summer, on stalks and snow if it is winter, 
or on the pines which think of the sun. 

The Evil One lived near. He was the master 
of the souls of the dead, the Shadows. He kept 
them in his lodge. He wanted Itasca to live 
with him and make a pleasant light among the 
Shadows ; but she wished to stay with her father, 
under pines which thought of the Sun. 

The Evil One was angry for that. He called 
strong spirits. Thunder and Winds. Thunder 
came rumbling in with his sons, the Lightnings. 
West Wind brought rain; North Wind an icy 
breath. The four winds trembled and moaned 
because they did not wish to obey; but the Winds 

43 



LITTLE CORN" TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



are thoughtful. They thought that when they 
were dead and shadows they would be in the 
power of The Evil One in his gloomy lodge. For 
their souls' sake they obeyed. They entered the 
lodge of The Good Spirit and turned their faces 
toward their homes. Each Wind breathed 
against the wall across his way home. The com- 
pelled Winds breathed away the lodge of The 
Good Spirit. They spoiled the house of Itasca 
and the land around it, but Itasca would not go 
with The Evil One. 

She had not become a Shadow, and The Evil 
One had no right to her; but he seized her and 
threw her down and cast earth over her. 

She is in a mound of earth weeping. Her tears 
trickle thru the mound and creep across the land 
which the unwilling Winds spoiled. Corn and 
flowers rise to meet them, and the thoughtful 
Winds go back and wave the flowers and swing 
the tassels of the corn. The tears gather in a 
hollow. They flow out. The tears of Itasca 
flow from that hollow. They mingle with the 
beginning of the Mississippi, the Father of 
Waters. 

The boy heard messages the scribes were 
painting in pictures on a buflfalo hide stretched 
in bushes behind his back, and the strokes of the 

44 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



amulet-worker and of the weapon-maker busy 
in the dry run from the river to Mammoth Cave. 
He heard the speech of wampum, that it might 
mean love or hate, promise or payment, the 
chief's ransom or the tribe's tribute: he heard 
that it meant the call to the Great Fight: he 
heard that the war-wampum had come. He 
heard the spirits of things, the spirits of beasts, 
of leaves, of dark, of light, — invisibles about a 
man or the beginning of a man anywhere, for- 
ever. 

The clinking of the amulet-worker and of the 
weapon-maker was still. Their work was done. 
Life went hurriedly behind the boy, for hostile 
tribes were close, war-paint was on, war-hatchets 
were out, and the braves were wild for fighting. 

^^Come," Tarrho said to the boy's mother. 

Swananoa bound Little Corn Tassel to her 
back in the wicker-case, snatched Tarrho's plait- 
ed shoes and a deer-skin bag filled with parched 
corn, and followed Tarrho. 

Rain had fallen, and berryvines and water 
sheeted the mouth of Mammoth Cave. Tarrho 
led Swananoa around and behind the vines and 
falling water into cool, black air. He bent her 
to a seat water-grooved in a wall of rock. 

"Sit and wait. War wampum has come for 

45 



LITTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIBST SUM301B 



the Great Fight. See that the boy is safe when 
I come from victory." 

Swananoa was used to hunger and cold, used 
to being alone and brave. She would have been 
hungry but for the corn, lonely but for the boy, 
and brave but for Tarrho's long delay and awe 
of blackness and of things which slip thru the 
coils of blackness. She could not see stones 
which would glisten in the wall across if there 
was light. She could not see Corn Tassel. 

Darktime ran gaily for the boy. He was 
happy, for duty-work had become dear-work for 
Swananoa. He was unlaced from the wicker 
case, his face, his hands, were laid in a bosom. 
He said it was "Goo ah Goo!" When he slept, 
his lips left the bosom, but his hands there were 
not quiet. 

Swananoa did not sleep, for something was 
with her in the darkness, something not the 
child. She knew nothing of the talking water: 
its voices were the voices of beings greater than 
human. She wailed in anguish, and the an- 
guished wail of a woman answered from the 
dark. She called to the other squaw. "Is your 
brave coming for you?" 

Not one, many squaws, rolled it ofif and hurled 
it back: "Is your brave coming for you?" 

46 



LITTI.E CORN TASSEL'S FIRST SUMMER 



It went and came till it came from the black 
coil a hollow moaning whisper and wandered 
from her ear. 

"Tarrho!'' she shrieked, and the dark shrieked 
with her for Tarrho, and afterward moaned and 
whispered for Tarrho. 

Sometime she began to see the high part of 
the wall across the hollow. Shadows, she 
thought them clouds, rolled and fled, and bright 
stones, she thought them stars, twinkled between 
the rolling clouds ; and a red star came, moving 
in smoke till it shone the blaze of a torch lighted 
above a man tall from victory. 

Swananoa followed her brave, forgetting the 
small bag and Tarrho's curious shoes and the 
wicker case, leaving them behind for palefaces 
who were to come in a hundred years, and taking 
only Corn Tassel himself. 

She might have fallen on stones, or into Bot- 
tomless Pit, but she did neither. She followed 
Tarrho past the Giant's Coffin, and he pushed 
aside the foam-ruffled curtain of berr5r\rines over 
the mouth of Mammoth Cave. After the cool 
air in the earth she felt air the sun shone thru. 

She could not see dark and light, she could 
see only dark. Above the arch flapping birds 
hurried to canebrake and wood, battle-ranges of 

47 



UTTLE CORN TASSEL'S FIBST SUMMEE 



dark and bloody ground — not far. Swananoa's 
eyes carried blackness thru open light to a sky 
where blue could be no bluer. 

She could never tell how black the sun looked 
and then how yellow when she beq:an to see. 

With clearing sight she looked for a sign for 
Corn Tassel. 

The river lay gold and green. Green and 
amber was the shining of leaves lifted to arch 
it. Swallows flitted over the river. From the 
far-blue a man-eagle and his mate eyed the earth. 
Swananoa hung Corn Tassel in the fair stillness. 
She began dear-work, little shoes, a swallow on 
one for the swiftness of freedom, and on one an 
eagle for its watchfulness. She could not say it, 
she could only put on the shoes, that she wished 
to make earthly something of the life, the action, 
and the freedom of the sky. Corn Tassel said it 
was "Goo Ah Goo!" 

Across the river panthers, afraid of small 
noises, stole crouchingly out of underbrush in 
the wood ; flattened against the bank ; and lapped 
stilly; and, stilly lapping, rolled bright eyes and 
looked over at the boy; but Green River, the 
deep river, rustled yellow lilies around his 
shadow on her breast. 

48 




IN MAMMOTH CAVE 




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